DS4 Trips Through Time
by Denise Felt
Summary: While SHADO deals with a missing UFO, Straker consults with the head of the Geological Society about iridium.


**4. Trips Through Time**

**(A UFO Story)**

by Denise felt 2010

_Dedicated to Louise once more, who is off on a new adventure with her beloved Mr. Straker!_

**Chapter 1**

He hadn't wanted to come here. It felt like such an intrusion. But Del had taken one look around and left, coming to him and demanding that he do something about it. She had refused to move in here with things as they now stood. Which meant it was left up to him to check it out and come to a decision about it. And he hadn't wanted to do that either.

Jake sighed. He wanted to believe Straker would come home some day. It hurt to even consider any other option. But in the meantime – and it could be a very _long_ meantime – what were they supposed to do with his things? With his house, his clothes, his furniture? He unlocked the front door and entered the split level house.

Then he just leaned against the door to close it, gaping at his surroundings. _Good God!_ Never mind the furniture. What were they supposed to do with all his _art?_ Every wall was covered with paintings or sculpture or something! And then there were the knickknacks everywhere – personal mementoes of a man no longer here to enjoy them. How was he supposed to clear this out? God!

Maybe they should just put up a sign outside and make it a museum.

After a while, he left the doorway and wandered through the house. It was a beautiful place, a little over-decorated at the moment, but still – very nice. And probably quite roomy, once you got rid of half the stuff. He opened the study door, then closed it again quickly. Far too much of Straker in there. He'd have to work his way up to that room.

On his way back into the living room, he paused, his eye caught by the zebra rug on the floor. It didn't look like something a man who lived like a monk would own, but there was something about it that was ringing a bell. He just didn't know what. He walked across it to the mantle and got a closer look at the painting that hung there. It was a dreamy meadow scene done in an impressionistic style, and although it took him a minute, he eventually figured out where he'd seen it before. It was the painting that had hung in the widower's apartment in that big love story that had won several Oscars a few years ago. What was it called again? He couldn't remember, and knew he'd have to ask Del. She'd loved it and hadn't stopped going on about it for weeks after seeing it. He'd finally taken her to a vampire film festival to get her mind on something else – if only to keep his sanity.

He looked back at the rug. Of course! It had been in that romantic comedy almost ten years ago, the one where the main leads had ended up on that rug time and time again throughout the film, but never getting to finish what they started there. He remembered he'd laughed uproariously when he'd first seen the movie.

Suddenly it hit him, and he looked around the house with wide eyes. This place was filled with props from movies. Everywhere he looked, he saw something from one of Straker's movies. There were the matched dueling pistols from that Regency romance; the antique crystal vase from the movie about three generations of the same family. How strange! He wondered why the commander would decorate with movie props? It sounded like something a young actor just starting out would do, not a superstar veteran actor with years of experience under his belt. And certainly not an executive producer, who had access to entire warehouses of props and surely found them boring. It made no sense.

It wasn't until he'd steeled himself to enter Straker's bedroom that he realized what it was all about. There on Straker's bedside table – next to the lamp and the phone – sat the only photo in the entire house. It struck Jake then, that there were no other photos. Just this one. He lifted it and stared at the face grinning out of the picture. It was a young kid, all smiles and big blue eyes.

Very blue eyes.

Shit! Straker's son. The one who'd died. Alec hadn't said much about it; but then, he hadn't needed to. In actual fact, Alec hadn't meant to mention it at all. But he'd been so worried about his friend and commander that he'd told Jake one night when they'd been sharing a cold beer after a successful command review in New York. Straker had taken the boy's death hard – well, hell! What father wouldn't? And Alec had wondered if it would mean the commander wouldn't be able to go on. If he would just walk away from it all.

He hadn't, for which they'd all been heartily grateful. And Alec hadn't mentioned it again. But Jake could never forget those nights after Freeman had returned to England, when the New York commander had lain awake for hours wondering what they would do if it ever happened. If Straker someday walked away from SHADO.

Well, he hadn't. He hadn't walked. He'd been shanghaied across time. And now the new HQ commander laid awake for hours wondering if he was alright in the past. If he was surviving? If he was finding food to eat or a roof over his head? He wanted to believe the commander would land on his feet. After all, he was a brilliant man. But he'd been alone so long, Jake worried that he wouldn't be able to adapt to a society where it was all about who you knew instead of what you knew.

He set the photo back down on the nightstand and left the bedroom. He looked around the house, finally seeing what Straker must have seen every night when he came home from HQ, exhausted and run down. _Memories._ Not photos. No. That would have been too personal, too many people in his face. Instead, he'd populated his house with memories. Good ones, obviously, from all the films he'd made. Remembrances of the multitudes of people that had come in and out of his life. The special little moments that had made the commander's solitary life worth enduring.

Jake closed up the house and drove back to HQ, certain of one thing. They definitely had to set up a museum.

The vicar wanted to talk to him. Again. Straker pleaded exhaustion and managed to put him off until morning. But he knew it was only a delay, not an actual escape. Mr. Cheevers was a determined man.

Determined to fuss, that is.

As the tired former commander-in-chief of Earth's most important defense facilities climbed into his lumpy bed at the inn, he thought about how different things were for him here than they had been back home. There he'd had Miss Ealand, an absolute gem of a secretary who never let anyone bother him. Well, except for Henderson, and no one could expect her to handle him. Why had he never appreciated her enough? He should have given her roses. She'd made his life run so smoothly that he'd been almost unaware of it. She would have dealt with Cheevers. Put him in his place in no uncertain terms. For that matter, the commander himself would not have experienced any difficulty giving the vicar a cold stare to keep him from encroaching.

But those tactics wouldn't work for mere Mr. Straker, secretary to the esteemed lady of the manor, and soon to be her groom. That Mr. Straker found himself in the oddest of predicaments.

He had assumed that the villagers would look askance at him for daring to raise his eyes to a woman of Lady Oatridge's rank and breeding. He had been quite prepared to have to ignore all the talk, the whispers, the insinuations. What else could he do? He could hardly argue with them. They had the right of it, after all. He was a penniless nobody with no family connections or inherited estates to call his own. It was nothing short of a social scandal for him to be marrying her.

But somehow, none of the villagers of Devilsgate seemed to care about that. Instead, they acted as though he was some kind of hero. Straker had no proof how the story of the battle at the pond had spread, although he supposed by mere process of elimination, he could assume it had been Matthew who had first told the tale in the taproom downstairs. But in the way of such stories, it had been embroidered and embellished to the point that it was commonly believed that he had singlehandedly dispatched any number of fierce red demons and rescued his lady from certain death. Since that time, he had become the object of more attention than he could ever have wanted. And here he was without his trusty Miss Ealand to keep them all at bay.

It was hilarious really. His position at the studio had been an effective buffer between him and whatever adoring fans wanted his autograph or picture, making it possible for him to be one of the only actors in the history of film-making to not have to deal with unwanted admirers. And yet here he was, centuries away from that job with all its hype and foolishness – and he was stuck dealing with wide-eyed gawkers who wanted a piece of his time.

Not that the vicar was obvious in his pursuit of Straker's company. He merely had questions that managed to crop up about the wedding – questions that never seemed to be answered with just one visit. His latest worry was that the church wouldn't hold the number of people wishing to attend the wedding of the year. Although what he thought Straker could do about it was beyond him!

Oh, if Alec could see him now! Straker chuckled sleepily in the dark as he thought of his friend. How Alec would laugh at him, telling him it served him right for saving a damsel in distress in the first place!

But his smile didn't stay. Alec wouldn't be there to support him for this wedding. He would be at the altar alone this time, hoping like hell he wasn't irrevocably changing history with this marriage. It would have been nice to have Alec there, telling him to stop thinking so much and just enjoy the adventure. Some adventure! Straker figured all those time travel stories he'd read as a kid had gotten it wrong. Those heroes hadn't ever worried about how their actions would affect future generations. And they should have. It was a real concern, after all.

However, looking back over the course of events that had brought him to the point of marriage with the incomparable Louise, he couldn't see how he might have ever stopped and stepped away from her. She'd drawn him to her from the first, and although he'd given it his best shot, he would never have been able to resist her for long. She was just too special, too wonderful. Too much the woman he had never dreamed of in his old life – because he'd had no idea such a woman existed. It had taken coming here, to a past century, to find her.

How ironic that he had the aliens to thank for his present happiness.

"So, Miss E. When can I talk to Louie?"

Miss Ealand looked up as Del came out of Straker's studio office. "At 11:30. He said he'd be finished on the set of the new science fiction film by then."

"Great. I sure hope Kiki doesn't give me any trouble."

"I am certain that Commander Davenport will feel just as he ought about it," the secretary assured her.

Del ran a hand through her spiky dark hair. "Yeah. You're right. He's aces. I guess I'm just wishing it was all settled and I could get on to doing my job."

"I think you're doing a wonderful job in very trying circumstances," soothed Miss Ealand.

Del grinned. "You're nice to have around, Miss E."

As the secretary opened her mouth to reply, Jake came into the outer office from the hall.

"Hey, Finnie! We've gotta talk!" he said unceremoniously.

"Come into my office," she said with a sweep of her hand.

But her cousin took one look beyond the doorway and shook his head. "No. I can't talk about this in there. Look, I can get the house cleared out for you by tomorrow morning."

"Kiki!" she cried. "You're fab!"

He held up a hand. "But . . . I want to set up a gallery somewhere in this building for all his art and memorabilia. I'm not going to just throw it out or auction it off as if it's nothing. His memories matter."

Her eyes misted up. "Just what I was thinking."

"You were?"

She nodded. "Miss E and I came up with the idea of renovating one of the extra offices into a mirror of this one. We could set it up with all his things from in here and have a permanent display. We'd call it Straker's Office."

Jake grinned, glad to have her in tune with him. "Exactly! Like a museum. So, which office do you want to use? Because if we plan it right, we can line the hallway nearby with all his stuff from the house. Make it an open gallery of sorts."

"I believe the best office for that would be Mr. Hancock's office," Miss Ealand said briskly to hide her emotion. She pulled out the floor plan they'd been working on and showed them. "It's a corner office and would allow us access to two hallways instead of just one." She had a fairly good idea just how much 'stuff' they would be bringing in from Straker's house. They were going to need every inch of those hallways.

Jake nodded. "This is good. We'll just change the flow of staff from these nearby offices to keep from creating a bottleneck, and it should work. How soon can we get going on it?"

"I've got an appointment with Louie Graham at 11:30."

"Okay. Tell him he's got my approval to tear the whole building to pieces if necessary to get it done."

"Thanks, Kiki." Del gave him a big hug, surreptitiously wiping her damp eyes on his jacket.

He cleared his throat. "It's always a good thing when you agree with me, Finnie," he said, patting her shoulder.

After he left the office, Del gave a little dance. "Alright! Woo-hoo!"

Miss Ealand smiled at her exuberance. She would have liked to get up and dance herself. How pleased she was that Commander Straker would be remembered in this fashion. And how odd that it had taken two foreigners – not even his own personal staff – to think of it and make it happen.

She blinked her eyes to remove any excessive moisture, then got on the phone to set up work crews to send out to Commander Straker's house. Oh, and it would probably be a good idea to warn Mr. Hancock that he was going to need to find another office.

He was not going to get away with this.

Ginny gunned the gas and raced her little Porsche through the night, heading for Commander Davenport's house. She'd had enough. He could pretend all he wanted that nothing had ever happened between them, but she wasn't about to play along. For days she'd been waiting for him to show some sign that their night together had meant anything to him. A glance, a smile – hell! Even a glare would have been something!

But, no. Not him. Not_ Mr. Nonchalant_.

Well, she wasn't going to stand for it. She pulled up into the drive and got out, then just stood and blinked. She was surprised that his house wasn't anything like what she'd been expecting. Instead of a modern monstrosity or palatial sprawl stood a small cottage, complete with white picket fence. Surely he'd had enough time to find a place that suited him? They hadn't been _that_ busy since he'd arrived. But it was ridiculous to assume that he would have chosen such a house voluntarily. It seemed completely opposite of his New York personality.

Well. She'd just ask him about it. _After_.

She was smiling when he opened the door.

"Hi, Jake!"

He blinked, wondering what he'd done to earn a visit from her? Alone. At night. _Okay_. Best not to go there. "Hi, Virginia. Come in."

"Thanks," she said as she entered, looking around with interest. "Nice place."

And it was. She could tell the age of the cottage from the inside. The walls were mismatched stone, worn over at least a century of time into a harmonious blur. The enormous fireplace was black from countless fires and even now boasted a warm fire that lit the room with its flickering glow.

Jake turned on a few lights, hoping to dispel the romantic atmosphere and keep her from thinking he'd been sitting in the dark thinking about her.

Which he had been doing. But it wouldn't do for her to know that.

She wandered over to the overstuffed couch to glance at the one anachronistic item in the room: his laptop. It looked like a complex structure was being developed on the screen, using a program unlike any she'd ever seen before. "What's this?"

"Oh." Jake came over and turned the laptop so that she could see it better. "Moonbase 2. We're just finishing the final details before construction begins."

She gasped. "What? How in the hell did you get Henderson to approve that? Commander Straker had been trying to get it off the ground for years!"

"Well, he did. Get it off the ground, I mean. We've been working on the plans for the past eleven months. It's finally about ready to show to the Board for final approval."

"Straker? Commander Straker was working on this? How come he never said a word?"

Jake grinned. "Probably because he knew what he wanted and didn't need any other input. We had enough hassle as it was dealing with the engineers. They're so quick to say that something can't be done! It's stupid."

She bit down on the sharp retort she wanted to make. After all, _she_ was an engineer. But she was just so astonished at the complexity of the design onscreen. It took her a moment scrolling around, but she began to understand why certain corridors worked the way they did. Not to mention certain rooms. She was amazed at the sheer brilliance and insane beauty of the structure. She looked at Jake.

"You said 'we'."

He shrugged. "Yeah. The original plan was mine. Straker wanted something concrete that he could alter as needed. So I did up the original, and then we just added to it along the way."

"It looks incredible," she said.

He flushed. "Thanks."

"What will it look like from the outside? Can you show me that?"

"Oh, sure." He touched a button onscreen and the image shifted into an outside view, complete with lunar rock underfoot.

She admired the way the base merged with its landscape, all the while looking like a surreal fantasy. But she kept getting distracted as she panned around. "What program is this?" she finally asked when she could take it no longer. "I've never seen anything like it."

He grinned like a proud father. "It's one of Del's. Straker and I did all the beta testing for it. SHADO R & D is working out the last of the bugs as we speak. It should be available for our research teams to use within six months."

She knew her mouth was hanging open and snapped it shut. "Your cousin Del?"

Her disbelief was so obvious it was all he could do not to laugh. "Um, yeah. She plays around with this sort of thing all the time. Del doesn't think the way other people do. Her understanding of spatial relationships is totally unique. Straker said she was a genius. He practically offered her the moon to join SHADO. Too bad he didn't know about her love of movies. But Del finds the military a drag for the most part. She only sticks around because they at least understand the concept of order."

Ginny tried to reconcile her image of the scruffy kid in Straker's office to the – yes, Straker had obviously known what he was talking about! – _genius_ who had designed this program. "Well," she began, then didn't know what else to say. Were all of his relatives a bundle of contradictions?

Jake seemed to get it anyway. "Yeah. She's the bomb."

She smiled at his obvious pride. "You two are very close, aren't you?"

"Oh, yeah," he said, sitting back down and relaxing against the cushions. "We grew up in each other's pockets for the most part. Drove each other crazy. Kept each other sane. That kind of thing."

"Your parents got together a lot?"

"Our parents . . ." he said in a meditative voice. Then he shook his head and grinned at her. "We hated them. The Davenports of New York, you know."

She shook her head. "No. I don't know."

"Ah! Where have you been?" he quizzed her. "The Upper Crust, dahling. Bluest of the blue bloods." He suddenly scowled, dropping the plummy accent. "Asses! The lot of them. Not an ounce of fun in the entire bunch. Finnie and I formed our own resistance army. The Marauders. That's what we called ourselves. Had our own secret codewords and handshakes." He sighed gustily. "Those were the days!"

She tried to imagine what he was describing. Two scruffy kids caught in the midst of two sets of sleek sophisticated parents. It was a wonder they'd survived. And no wonder at all why they were both still determinedly scruffy. It was their armor, after all. She grinned suddenly. "And your odd nicknames?"

Jake chuckled. "Yeah. That really drove them wild! But Finnie actually is part of her name. Can you imagine the torture of growing up with a name like Delphinia? Was she supposed to just accept it?" He snorted in derision at her parents' short-sightedness. "Idiots!"

"What about 'Kiki'?" she asked, trying not to show how curious she was.

"Ah!" He nodded sagely. "Yeah. Well, I suppose if you stretched it really thin and twisted it around for a bit, you could make Kiki a part of Jacob. But it's really just a bastardization of Jakey, which she called me until I threatened to strangle her and throw her over the balcony."

Ginny laughed. "I envy you having such a fun playmate. I roamed the hills near my home by myself for the most part."

"The Appalachian Devil," he murmured, mesmerized by her laughter.

She blinked, then realized that he must have looked into her records to know where she was from. And by looking, he'd betrayed an interest. She gave him a sassy grin. "Exactly."

He stared at her over the laptop, every thought wiped cleanly from his mind at her smile. "Ginny," he said softly, his dark eyes sensuous in the fire's glow.

She moved closer, easing the laptop off his lap onto the coffee table. "Hi, Jake."

**Chapter 2**

The sounds of hammers and saws filled the air as Alec entered the main glass doors of the studio. He lifted a brow at Candace behind the reception desk. "What's up? World War III?"

She grinned and shook her head. "A special exhibit," she explained.

"Oh, really?" Del hadn't said anything about that when he'd seen her last night. Of course, it wasn't as if they wasted a lot of time talking when they were together. She was a wild creature, and he was quite happy to encourage her to be just as untamed as she wanted to be. Who needed words?

He wandered down the hall past the construction and caught sight of Louie Graham. He raised a hand. "Hey, Louie!"

Louie acknowledged him with a nod and left what he was supervising to approach where the colonel stood. "Morning, sir," he said in his gravelly voice. "Not looking too bad, is it?"

Alec glanced around the bare office they were industriously altering. "What's it going to be?" he asked finally.

Louie grinned proudly. "Straker's Office."

"_What?_"

Louie blinked at the colonel's aghast expression. And swallowed. "Miss Del's orders, sir. Thought you knew."

Alec's lips thinned ominously. "Not a problem. Carry on, Louie."

As he walked away, the longtime SHADO construction manager let out a breath. "Right."

"What the hell is going on here?"

Del clutched at her chest as she turned around, trying to keep her heart from jumping out of her rib cage. "Will you stop doing that?" she demanded. "You'll give me a heart attack one of these days!"

Alec glared at her, then glared at all the boxes scattered everywhere, overflowing with Straker's things from the office. The backlit wall display was bare, as were most of the tabletops around the room. "What is going on?" he repeated at a lower volume – and between his teeth.

She sighed. There stood the biggest obstacle to her plan. Which was why she hadn't mentioned it to him. She had wanted it underway before he could have a chance to object. But she looked at his unrelenting features and figured if they were going to have a scene, they might as well get it over with.

"Alec, Ed wouldn't have wanted things to stand still once he was gone. How dumb would that be? He would expect the new studio head to decorate their office the way they wanted, not leave everything the same."

He frowned at her, unwilling to listen to logic. "But this is wrong – to just chuck all his stuff out like this! What about his Oscars, for godsake?"

She laid a comforting hand on his beefy arm, feeling the tension beneath the silk of his jacket. "None of them are gone, Alec. They're all going right back on the wall display – just not in this office."

"Where, then?" he asked gruffly, then suddenly remembered Louie's words. "In another office? Why?"

She ran a hand through her spiky hair. "Simple. I can't work in this office with all his things surrounding me. Are you going to tell me you could?"

He remained silent, still refusing to admit there might be some merit to what she was saying.

"So we decided to set up a special exhibit of his office elsewhere on the main floor, so that visitors and tourists can see what Straker's office was like. It'll be like a shrine to him, a reminder of all his years of great leadership. No one will ever forget him now, Alec. Not with such a firm remembrance of him right here for anyone to see."

He jerked his arm out from under her hand, his brow still glowering, muttering about upstarts under his breath as he left the office to take another way down into HQ.

And Del stood in the office and watched him go, knowing that there was only so much she could do for him. She understood his grief over the commander's disappearance. Especially since she shared it. But she'd dealt with grief before, and she knew that eventually you had to go on. Life demanded it.

However, she was also aware that those who had loved Straker most would have the hardest time letting go of him, and they would resist any changes on his behalf. Too bad they couldn't see that he would prefer them not to hold on. He'd want them to live their lives – not die with him.

She sighed and went back to the packing, her eyes a bit misty. She wondered how long it would take for Alec to decide to live again?

"Red alert! This is a red alert!" SID's mechanic voice droned its standard warning as Jake came out of the office.

"Well, Keith?" he asked.

"Five of them, Commander. Trajectories coming in now."

Jake read the numbers coming up onscreen and sighed. "The iridium deposits," he said. "Are our defenses in place and on alert?"

"Checking now." After a few seconds, Lt. Ford turned to him. "Yes, Commander. All defense systems ready."

"Good. Let's hope they're not needed. Launch interceptors."

After contacting Moonbase, the lieutenant replied. "Interceptors launched."

After a few minutes, Lt. Ellis' face appeared on the monitor. "Commander, the interceptors got three of the UFOs. The other two are entering Earth's atmosphere."

"Thanks, Lieutenant. Great work."

"Thank you, sir." With a nod, she signed off.

Jake looked at the final two trajectories. "Launch Sky 1 and Sky 3."

"Right." Keith got on his headset and contacted the sleek Skydiver submarines patrolling Earth's oceans.

After a moment, he said, "Sky 1 and Sky 3 in the air."

Jake got on the microphone. "Captains, we have two UFOs still heading to Earth. You have their trajectories. Don't let them reach the iridium deposits."

"Yes, sir," they both answered from their separate cockpits.

Soon Capt. Carlin radioed back. "Sky 1 to SHADO HQ. UFO destroyed. Heading back to base."

"Thanks, Peter," said the commander. "Excellent work."

"Sky 3 to SHADO HQ," radioed in Capt. Santos.

"What is your position, Captain?" Jake asked.

"I've lost it, sir," said the pilot in disgust. "I had the UFO on positive track, then it just disappeared from radar. And I haven't been able to relocate it now that I'm in visual range."

Jake glanced at Keith, who shook his head. "No radar contact, Commander."

Davenport frowned into space for a moment, then said into the microphone, "Go ahead and scout the area, Miguel. If you are unable to track it either by radar or visually within the next hour, return to base."

"Yes, Commander," said the pilot. "Sorry, sir."

"No apologies needed, Captain. It wasn't your fault. Keep looking for it."

"Yes, sir. Sky 3 out."

"Keith," the commander said to the lieutenant. "Watch that radar like a hawk. Any signal – any at all – and I want to know immediately. Understood?"

"Yes, Commander."

As he turned from the radar toward his office, Jake added, "Get the command team together. I want to see them in my office ASAP."

They didn't use the conference table. Jake preferred such a formal setting for senior staff meetings, when his office was crowded with people. Instead, they pulled up an extra chair for Col. Foster, and they all sat in front of the desk while the commander sat behind it.

"Thanks for coming on such short notice," he said. "Here's the situation. We've lost a UFO near one of the locations for iridium. We've got nothing on radar, and ground defenses haven't detected any movement so far. But it may only be a matter of time before the aliens try for it."

Foster frowned. "The ground defenses shouldn't have any trouble taking care of it when it does show up. I don't see the problem."

Jake nodded. "Normally, there wouldn't be one. However, this particular deposit sits about ten miles from here. A little close for comfort, wouldn't you say?"

Col. Freeman sat forward. "That close? Could they be aiming for HQ and trying to make us think they're after the iridium instead?"

"Yes, Alec. I think they might very well be after HQ and using the iridium as a ploy to distract us. Therefore, I've doubled the ground defenses at our perimeter. HQ will remain at yellow alert until we either locate that UFO or it attacks. Depending on how long it takes, it will impact each of your shifts, so I wanted you aware of the circumstances. Any questions?"

Col. Lake asked, "How did we lose it? Did it drop below radar or just disappear?"

Jake grinned. Trust Ginny to go to the heart of the matter. "Good question. It disappeared off Sky 3's radar at the same time we lost it here at HQ."

She frowned, then almost spoke – before meeting his eyes and abruptly shutting up.

He nodded and said to them, "I appreciate your attention in this matter. Please stay alert and keep me informed about any odd occurrences during your shifts until further notice. You're dismissed."

Alec sighed as he got out of his chair. "Damned aliens and their disappearing tricks!" he muttered as he left the office.

Paul stood up as well, and said, "It'll be harder to track the UFO visually at night. Do you want me to stay over today and help out Virginia during the night shift?"

"Thanks, Paul," Jake said. "I'm sure she'll be glad for the extra pair of eyes. Why not take an hour or so now for a break, so that you don't get too tired tonight?"

"Thanks. I'll do that." He stood for a moment, as if waiting for Col. Lake to say something. Then he left the office.

When he was gone, Jake closed the door, raising an eyebrow at the colonel. "Problems?"

She met his eyes. "No. Nothing I can't handle."

He sat back with a small smile. "Which is it? No? Or just nothing you can't handle?"

She sighed. "I'm not going to discuss it with you, Jake. Will you trust me to handle it on my own?"

He realized that whatever she was hiding from him had to do with Foster. And since his initial response was to demand that she tell him everything, he took a deep breath and counted backward from one hundred thousand until he was calm. Finally he said, "Of course I trust you, Virginia. But I hope you can also trust me to put a stop to any problems that get out of hand. Do you trust me?"

She sighed. Trusting him wasn't the difficulty. Of course she knew he'd protect her from any problems that cropped up with the staff. _That _was the problem. She didn't want him to kill Paul. "Yes, Jake. I trust you."

He relaxed, letting it go. For now. "Well then, Colonel. Since you seem to be the only one who understood the underlying implications of what the aliens are doing, what is your opinion of their actions?"

"Isn't it obvious? They've used their temporal device to escape detection. They could be who-knows-where and who-knows-when by now, just waiting for the right opportunity to attack."

Jake nodded. "Any ideas on how to stop them?"

She frowned for a moment, then said, "I think we should contact the Fredericksburg facility. Have them monitor that device."

"God, Ginny!" Jake said in disgust. "Will you let it go already?"

She met his eyes, startled by his vehemence. "What? What did I say?"

He sighed. "I know you want to find the commander. We all do. But this is hardly the time to be . . ."

"No, you don't understand!" she interrupted. "If the aliens have their temporal devices linked in any way from ship to ship, then we'll detect something with the device we have at the facility. Maybe we can even figure out their exact coordinates, depending on whether the device tells us a little or a lot."

He sat forward excitedly. "Contact them. Tell them the situation. Have them record any fluctuation in that device. Let me know what they say."

She grinned at him as she stood up, pleased that he had listened to her. "I'll get back to you on that, Commander."

He stood with his arms around her, her back against his chest as they both watched the rain out the study window. He absently kissed her hair, and the movement seemed to bring her thoughts back to the present.

"You will be a married man soon, Mr. Straker. With a life suddenly full of responsibilities and obligations. Are you worried?"

He smiled, laying his cheek against her curls. "Not in the least, my Lady. I thrive on a challenge."

She giggled, and his smile widened.

"How unflattering, sir!" she said in mock-sternness. "You would call marriage to me a challenge?"

"Most assuredly, dear Lady," he said calmly. "Someone has to keep the accounts straight."

She turned in his arms at that, throwing her arms around his neck. "Oh, Edward! I am so very happy!"

He caught a glimpse of tears in her eyes and held her close. "All evidence to the contrary," he said drily, hoping to tease her into telling him what troubled her.

She gave a watery chuckle and swiped at her eyes. "It's just that I never have been. Or at least, not in so many years that I've forgotten the feeling. And I'm a little concerned that something might occur to keep us from marrying. As if I don't deserve to have my happiness complete."

At his silence, she hugged him tightly and kissed his throat. "I'm being absurd, I know."

"No, darling. You're not," he assured her quietly. "Since I'm feeling very much the same way."

She met his eyes in surprise. "You, sir? Are you terrified too?"

He kissed her, and the passions that had so recently been assuaged between them stirred once more. He carried her back to the couch and joined her, sitting on the edge and patiently untying all the laces he had so recently tied for her. "I am indeed quite terrified, my sweet Lady," he said huskily. "But if you promise to bring your smelling salts, I will endeavor not to swoon during the ceremony."

She giggled breathlessly at such an image, until his kisses put such thoughts from her mind entirely.

"What is it, Keith?" Jake asked as the lieutenant paused just inside the doorway as if unwilling to come completely inside the office.

"I have some good news and some bad news," Ford said reluctantly.

Well, that was better than no news at all, which is what they had received from Fredericksburg. Jake met Virginia's eyes for a moment, then sighed and sat back in his chair. "Okay. Let's have it then!"

"Which do you want first?"

"The good news, of course!" his friend told him, as if it should have been obvious.

"Right," Keith said, swallowing. "The good news. I found some documents that refer to Commander Straker. In the past."

Jake pushed the button to close the office door and lock it. He gestured to the chair next to where Virginia sat. "Have a seat."

"Thanks. I was looking through old parish records from 1850 backward, hoping to find some reference to him. It's been a laborious task, because I had no way of knowing what parish he landed in or maybe moved to over the years."

"Which is why we were quite happy to let you handle that end of it, Keith," the commander said with a grin.

Keith acknowledged that with a slight smile, then became serious once more. "I found reference to him in the Harlington parish."

"What?" exclaimed Col. Lake. "_Here?_ He was here? All this time – _he was here?_"

The lieutenant nodded. "Apparently, when they moved him through time, they kept him in the same general area. He never left it."

Jake ran a hand through his hair, trying not to show how disturbing this news was to him. "Trying to find a way back home?"

"I don't know," Keith said sadly. "But I do know he never found it."

"Obviously!" Virginia said waspishly, getting to her feet and pacing the office. "Or he'd be back by now." She was furious to realize that he'd been so close – so close! – all this time. Those vicious bastards! How could they do that to him?

Jake frowned, watching her movements for a moment. Then he looked at Keith, who met his eyes unhappily. "Why do you know that?" the commander asked quietly.

Ford swallowed again. "That's the bad news. The documents I found were from a private cemetery belonging to the parish that is located on a neighboring property."

"A cemetery?" Ginny asked, whirling around to face him.

He nodded, too depressed to say the words.

"When?" Jake asked in a strained voice. "When did he die?"

"1821. He was seventy-nine years old. A long life for those days."

"Seventy-nine . . ." Jake closed his eyes for a moment, then with a sigh he opened them and sat forward. "Okay, if he stuck to the truth, he would have been nearly forty-five when he arrived in that time period. Which would have made it what year?"

"Um . . ." Keith counted. "1786 or thereabouts."

Jake held out his hand, and Keith gave him the parish records. There was silence in the room as the commander looked through them, and Ginny came back to her chair feeling unbearably sad. She hadn't realized before how much she'd been expecting Straker to find a way to return – until now, when it was abruptly made clear that he wasn't ever going to get home again. Everything seemed so hopeless all of a sudden, as if it didn't even matter. Why even continue searching anymore? Nothing they found out after this would change anything, could bring him back to them. Not even word from Fredericksburg would help them now. Straker would still die an old man in the past – so close to where he wanted to be, but never quite there.

_Yeah_, she thought with a weary sigh, _she knew all about that one_.

Suddenly Jake looked up from the records, an odd expression on his lean face. "Did you read these, Keith?" he asked.

"Not all the way," Ford explained. "Once I saw the information on the commander, I thought I'd better get it to you. Why? What does it say?"

"It's a family cemetery," Davenport said softly. "There's record of his wife, a Louise Elizabeth Straker. She lived quite a long time, as well. In fact, he didn't survive for long after she died. That's interesting."

"Why?" Col. Lake asked angrily, too upset to watch her tone.

Jake met her eyes, then looked back at the records, not bothering to answer. "There are also cemetery records for his children and their families. He had quite a few of them."

"Really?" asked Keith, smiling fully for the first time since he'd entered the office. The thought of his stern commander with a parcel of kids running around underfoot tickled him for some reason.

Jake grinned back at him. "Yeah. And their names tell quite a story."

"What do you mean?" the lieutenant asked.

"His oldest child was a son," the commander told them. "Alexander Straker."

Ford chuckled. "That's great! Wait until Alec finds out!"

Jake nodded. "His second child was a daughter. Virginia."

"What?"

He met Col. Lake's shocked eyes with a great deal of understanding in his own. "He never forgot SHADO. He never forgot any of us. It's all right here for anyone to see. He couldn't make it back to his own staff, but he kept his memories of the people he cared about alive in the world he was stuck in."

He glanced back at the papers. "His third child was Paul. Then Nina, Gabrielle, and Peter. There's even a Grace."

He glanced questioningly at Virginia, who said, "Miss Ealand."

He blinked, a little surprised. "Oh! Okay. And the last child before we start into spouses and grandchildren is . . . Jacob." He stopped for a minute and just stared at the paper, blinking rapidly. Finally he cleared his throat and said, "So. Eight kids in all. He may not have made it back to SHADO, but at least we know he stayed busy."

Keith was grinning. "I'm glad," he said after a moment. They both looked at him; one with a half-smile, the other with a frown.

"I am," he reiterated firmly. "He never got to have any of that here. Work always got in the way. And I thought that was a shame. He was a great man. He'd have made a great father. Those kids were lucky. Luckier than they knew, to have him for their dad."

Jake nodded, fingering the papers. "This cemetery is located not far from here, if it still exists. On the property belonging to Claringbold Manor. Can we find out more about this manor, Keith? See if it's still a private residence, or even if it's still standing?"

"I'm on it!" The lieutenant stood up, leaving the office in a much lighter mood.

The commander glanced at Col. Lake, who sat frowning at nothing in particular. "This is good news, Virginia," he said softly. When she glanced up and met his eyes, he continued, "It's not quite the news we wanted, but that doesn't mean it's not still good news."

"I was so sure he'd find a way back," she said dejectedly.

He sighed, wondering how long it would take her to accept that her white knight was only a man, after all. A man who – sooner or later – would have to acknowledge his own limitations and make a life where he found himself. It wasn't as if he didn't want him back himself. Nothing would have made him happier than to see that white blonde head striding down the corridors of HQ in front of him. But he'd known all along that the chances of that were pretty slim. The odds were just so appallingly against them: first in finding him (which amazingly they had done!), and then in coming up with a way to bring him back home.

But if they were never going to see him again, it was at least good to know that he'd survived. And more than that, that he'd prospered during the remainder of his life.

Ford returned, saying, "It's still a private home, but it's also a museum. They do tours on various holidays throughout the year. There aren't any tours on the schedule for the next few weeks, but I can get one for you if you like. They take special appointments."

"Do it, Keith. And thanks."

The lieutenant grinned as he left the office.

"So, Virginia," Jake said as she just sat there, oblivious to her surroundings. "Want to take a tour?"

**Chapter 3**

Life in Georgian England was rather unhurried, for the most part. There were those few citizens like Louise, who preferred to gallop along at breakneck speeds. But for the vast majority of the British people, a sedate pace was so much more decorous and pleasant. Straker tended to agree with them.

However, there were one or two events that managed to defy any attempt at a decorous pace. One of those times was a marriage.

Suddenly the manor was bustling with people, all of them with a great deal of work to do in a short span of time. Mrs. Meddows was like a very happy general ordering her troops of maids about as they cleaned every room in the house from top to bottom. There were several servants Straker had never seen before running about, and it had needed Louise to explain to him that their normal staff required assistance in order to get the cleaning done before the wedding. He had tried to tell her that it was unnecessary. The house looked just fine the way it was.

But his fiancee had merely smiled at him as if he were slow-witted . . . and planned another cleaning schedule with Mrs. Meddows.

His tailor had been ecstatic that he wanted him to make his bridal suit, exclaiming about the newest silks from the Far East and assuring him that his waistcoat would display the finest embroidery to be found in all of England. Straker had said only that he preferred a single-breasted coat to a double-breasted one, and was there a color a little less somber than black? It seemed that there was: a charming charcoal grey that softened the look of the jacket to the point that he was quite satisfied. He went away very pleased with the outcome of their proceedings.

And his tailor went into the backroom to indulge in a bout of tears. To be chosen for such a momentous occasion was far beyond his highest hopes and aspirations, and so the enormity of it all overwhelmed him. But only momentarily. Upon recovering from his weeping, he immediately sent for his good wife, who was a notable needlewoman, and had her make up an embroidery pattern for Mr. Straker's wedding waistcoat that would make a duke proud.

Louise had wanted to post up to London immediately to visit the most famous modistes to make her bridesclothes. But upon hearing that her lover was contenting himself with his own local tailor, she nodded and agreed that it was a very good thing she was marrying such a sensible man. She rode in the carriage to Harlington instead to visit her modiste there, and considering how long she remained closeted with her, must have been planning a wedding dress of tremendous proportions. At least, that is what her fiancee teased her about over luncheon.

She laughed and said that a trousseau was not a commodity to be trifled with. Straker merely smiled warmly at her and said he preferred her in her chemise. At which bold comment, she blushed rosily and did not speak again for several minutes.

It seemed that even Matthew was put to work over the wedding. He and Joseph dug tirelessly in the gardens, ruthlessly weeding and pruning their already lovely pathways into a veritable dream of a formal garden. Straker shook his head at all the bustle, but his fiancee seemed to be enjoying the excitement immensely.

With all the internal upheaval their wedding caused around the manor, there were also some external indications that changes were taking place. Claringbold Manor received a few distinguished visitors.

Their first visitor was Sir Joshua Reynolds, who arrived on a blustery morning in a carriage drawn by matched horses. He was pleased to be greeted with such kindness as a warm fire in the parlor and a cup of hot tea. His hostess was known to him, although he had never had the pleasure of painting her portrait. He was certain that he would be up to the challenge of taming that particular shade of red in her hair to a more acceptable auburn, if only he was given the chance.

He was slightly dismayed to find that he would be painting her fiancee instead. Mr. Straker was perhaps the most difficult subject Sir Reynolds had ever encountered. Oh, there were scores of subjects much more temperamental – throwing dishes or stomping out of sessions in hysterical fits! But never before had the famous artist come across a subject so difficult to define.

As Mr. Straker worked at the desk in the study, Sir Joshua lounged in an armchair and sketched him. His subject had adamantly refused to stand around in the morning room while the artist drew him, saying tersely that he had work to do and Sir Reynolds could sketch him there. Sir Reynolds had long before reached a place in his field where he was unused to being treated so peremptorily. But since his subject's fiancee had not known what to say, the artist had magnanimously agreed to that setup, knowing that after several minutes of being stared at while he tried to work, Mr. Straker would abandon his plan for a better solution.

However, Mr. Straker did not seem to mind being watched at all, and this led the artist to ponder what kind of colorful past his subject possessed. Because the only people Sir Reynolds knew who could completely ignore the world around them were stage actors. Or other artists like himself. The man was obviously an opportunist, seducing a lonely widow into marriage and thus gaining her lands and estates for himself. But he hadn't the manner of it. Instead, he seemed very much more like Sir Reynolds' own man of business, a tireless man who exulted in long hours and intense work. Mr. Straker labored without ceasing over the account books on the desk for several hours, rarely looking up from them to offer a comment. In that time, Reynolds made several sketches of that lean face, but hoped to get a chance to see it without such a remote expression.

His hopes were rewarded when Lady Oatridge entered the room to speak to her secretary. The look that came across Mr. Straker's face then was at once so poignant and so powerful an expression that the artist nearly dropped his stylus. _Why, he loved her!_ Reynolds was astonished. It simply made no sense. No man of honor would ask the woman he loved to marry beneath her social standing. It was ludicrous to even consider such a possibility.

As his mind reeled over the oddities of this most unusual match, he became aware of their conversation.

"But Mr. Jessup has just the person to take over for you. He wishes to discuss it with you at your convenience."

"My dear Lady," replied her fiancee in patient tones. "It is unnecessary. This work is neither too difficult nor too tedious for me. Why pay a secretary when I can easily handle it myself?"

She came closer to the desk. "Because you will have other responsibilities to take care of once we are married. Overseeing the estates, dealing with the tenants. That sort of thing. Unless you intend to leave all that in my hands?"

This last seemed almost like a challenge, but Mr. Straker did not receive it as such. Reynolds was amazed when the man's expression softened even further.

"They should be much better off in your gracious hands, my love. But I hope you will allow me to assist you."

She blushed and said, "Of course, sir! But how will you find time to do both jobs? It is too much to ask of you."

Unexpectedly, he grinned. "That is only because you have a dread of numbers. I find working the accounts very satisfying and will not easily relinquish it to another."

She sighed and gave up trying to change his mind. "Very well, sir. If you insist."

He gave her a warm smile that Reynolds had no trouble interpreting as extremely intimate, and said, "I do, my Lady."

She blushed further and hurried from the room. Her fiancee continued to watch the door for a moment or two, that same soft smile on his face. Then he went back to his work as if there had been no interruption.

The door to the imposing Gothic manor was opened to them by a young woman with white blonde curly hair and large blue eyes. She greeted them cheerfully and introduced herself.

"Welcome to Claringbold Manor! I'm Grace, and I'll be your guide today. Our tour will begin in the library. If you'll follow me there?"

"Excuse me," Virginia said as they crossed the large front hall toward the door to the library. "Are you a Straker?"

The girl's smile warmed. "Yes. On my mother's side. She married a Bolton, so that was my name until I married. But her father was Alex Straker. Do you know our genealogy then?"

"A little," replied the colonel faintly, giving her boss a look that spoke volumes.

"That's great," Grace said as they entered the library. She moved across the room until she stood just under a large ink sketch of a tree. "Because we begin the tour with our family tree." As she pointed to the sketch behind her, Jake was able to see that instead of leaves, names were interwoven between the branches. Lots of names.

"The original manor was built in 1697, when the land was deeded to Sir Neils Baxter. Very little is known about Sir Baxter before his signal service to King William that earned him his title and lands. And nothing is known about that service, although speculation has always been rife within the family as to what it entailed. Once the manor was completed, Sir Baxter married a lady of quality and settled down to country life. He had no desire to figure in London society and indeed, often could not be bothered even to leave his workroom, where he spent the majority of his time."

"Is the workroom still intact?" Jake asked her, expressing an interest Ginny didn't understand..

She shook her head. "No. In fact, he blew it up at least twice, and his wife eventually banned him from his pursuits altogether. His workroom was up in the tower, and she tired of having to constantly repair the roof. However, we are fortunate to have among the books in our library Neils' journals, detailing his work over the years on various bizarre inventions. His son was Sir Edward Baxter, as you can see from the tree. Neils had two daughters as well, but they did not live to adulthood. Edward married Lady Helen Larkswood of the Sussex family, and they raised one child, a son. Sir Henry Baxter.

"Sir Henry was a crony of Sir Horace Walpole and renovated the manor in 1769 to resemble his friend's Strawberry Hills estate. The work began shortly after the tragic death of his only son, Walter, and it is commonly believed that working on the house kept him from sinking into a decline. His wife was not so fortunate and died some three years later from consumption. As you can see, Sir Henry also had a daughter, Louise Baxter, who married Lord Oatridge a year after her father's death. They had been engaged to be married before he was injured on the estate and had his blessing before he died. The couple had no children.

"Some years after her husband's untimely death, Lady Oatridge remarried." Grace turned to give them a smile. "This is where the name Straker comes into the family. Where Mr. Straker came from or who his family was no one ever knew, but he made quite a name for himself in the locality and was esteemed quite highly."

"I have no doubt," said Jake quietly.

Grace nodded. "They had nine children, one of whom I am named after. As you can see from the tree, their youngest daughter was named Grace."

"Is that normal?" Ginny asked. "For names to continue through the generations?"

"That is a good question," said the guide. "Most families had one or two names that never stopped being used from generation to generation, mostly because rich relatives tended to give more inheritance to children named after themselves. But in the case of our family, the nine names of Edward and Louise's children were special to them, and so were passed down as a tribute to them. We also have some Edwards and Louises still. They were an interesting family."

"You said there were nine children," Jake said. "But the cemetery only has record of eight."

"Oh, yes. You've been there?"

"Not yet."

"Well, the reason their ninth child isn't in the cemetery records is because he emigrated to the Americas and is buried in Boston. Here on the tree you can see him. Keith Straker, their seventh child and fourth son."

"Keith," said Ginny, feeling ridiculously like laughing.

Jake grinned at her before turning back to their guide.

Grace said, "It was very unusual during that time for such a large progeny to survive to adulthood. But as you can see, they all did, and married in their turn to produce grandchildren. It is still told in these parts about the time Mr. Straker walked into the village of Devilsgate with a grandchild on his shoulders, one dangling down his back, two hanging off his arms, and several more following behind. But then, many stories about him still remain, some humorous like that one, and some that only sound believable on a stormy night in front of a fire. He was a legend, though. That much is certain.

"Would you care to see the gallery? We have several portraits of the people I've told you about, as well as many others of interest."

"That would be perfect," Jake told her.

Lady Oatridge interrupted them once more during their session. She came in while Sir Joshua was debating which of the rather indifferent sketches he had finished to use for the portrait. He wasn't really pleased with any of them, because they did not convey the true personality of the man in the sketch. Sir Joshua knew his artistic ability to be exemplary, but even he was at the point of conceding defeat – and by a mere untitled nobody! Frustration had nothing on his feelings at the moment, and he welcomed any diversion.

But the lady only stayed to inform her fiancee that they had another visitor. A Mr. Daughtry. Sir Reynolds never found out who Mr. Daughtry was, but his name had a powerful effect on Mr. Straker. He'd been standing behind his desk when she entered, filing some papers in a secretaire that stood against the wall. As she mentioned the man's name, a look came over Reynolds' subject's face that stunned the artist. It was an expression of such keen intelligence, such fierce determination, that Reynolds' heart nearly skipped a beat in fear. _This_ was the man, he thought suddenly. The real man that hid behind the stoic mask the artist had been trying to uncover! And his stylus flew over his canvas almost on its own accord, swiftly endeavoring to capture that expression before it was gone.

Straker said calmly, "I'll be right there. Thank you, my Lady."

Louise gave him a smile, then also directed one toward the artist, only to find him intently working on a sketch. So she left the room, going back to the parlor to entertain their other guest until her fiancee could join them.

The gallery was a long hallway on the second floor that faced several tall windows and doors that led onto a wide balcony. Heavy drapes kept out the sunlight and protected the paintings on the opposite wall from damage. And there were many paintings lining the hall.

Their guide showed them the tall life-size portrait of Sir Neils Baxter first. And Ginny gasped, suddenly realizing why Jake had been interested in the man. It was Baxter, the technician from the facility! Even dressed in an enormous white powdered wig and an elaborate coat, he was recognizable as the man from the tape who had disappeared just before their arrival in Fredericksburg. She turned to Jake with widened eyes, only to find him grinning up at the portrait as if he'd found an old friend.

And indeed it must have seemed so. Ginny remembered suddenly that Baxter had been his first casualty. How relieved he must be to find that he hadn't died after all! But it made Ginny wonder suddenly what service Baxter had managed to do for the king to earn his title? She shook her head at the oddities of time that had sent this man back into the past to end up his commander's wife's ancestor. Then she remembered that he had named his son Edward.

"Jake," she said, touching his arm in wonder.

"I know," he murmured back. They followed their guide to the next portrait. This one featured the Lord and his wife. She was a very pretty lady whose powdered wig was even more magnificent than her husband's. Jake thought Baxter looked quite smug, standing there behind her chair with a hand on her shoulder. Even Ginny could not hold back a grin at the sight.

The next portrait was of their son, Edward. He seemed like a very jovial person from his portrait, and Jake thought anyone less like his serious namesake would be hard to find. From his buckled shoes to his twinkling green eyes, he exuded the air of a man very well pleased with his world. In the painting of he and his wife together, he had shed the elaborate wig he'd worn in the first portrait and wore his powdered hair tied back at his nape. His wife looked like a sensible woman, and Jake was glad to see that she had a firm mouth to go with her intelligent gaze. No doubt she kept her more frivolous husband well in line.

The next portrait was of Henry. He too had powdered hair, but any resemblance to his father beyond that was minimal. He had obviously served in the military at some point, because he held himself with the air of a man used to military drills. His dark green eyes were serious as he stared out at the world, and Jake wondered if he had somehow known that his life would be both traumatic and shadowed by death. The portrait of he and his wife together did not paint a rosier picture.

Ginny leaned close to whisper, "She looks like she suffered from frequent attacks of the vapours."

And Jake had to disguise his laugh as a cough to avoid a comment from their guide.

There was a portrait of their daughter with her first husband, Lord Oatridge. He was a tall thickset man with dark hair tied at the nape and a bushy mustache. His eyes were not unkind, but his chin seemed a trifle weak. But the lady . . . ! His wife had her father's serious eyes and a gorgeous head of red hair tamed into curls that framed her lovely face. She did not smile in the portrait, but held her head high as befitted her station.

The next portrait was one they had seen before. It was Straker, white blonde hair tied back in a black riband. He was looking over his shoulder and wearing an expression of fierce determination on his face. Somehow the portrait was much more dynamic than the print had been, and Jake's breath nearly caught in his throat on meeting that gaze. He heard Ginny's gasp from beside him and sighed. But he couldn't blame her. It was almost as if Straker was there with them – across the centuries.

As Ginny stood staring at the portrait, Jake moved on to the next one. Here she was again, the red-haired beauty from the other portrait. But this time she was smiling. And more than that, she looked radiant, her dark eyes vibrantly aware of the man behind her as she sat in her chair. And Straker looked . . . different than any way Jake had ever seen him. It wasn't his hair or attire, which resembled that of the first portrait to some extent. It was his expression that filled Jake with wonder – and made him smile. He looked as radiant as his wife, his stern mouth softened into a quiet smile, and his eyes equally aware of the woman who sat before him, almost as if some unspoken bond connected them. And his hand, instead of resting on his wife's shoulder as in the other portraits they'd seen, was instead lost in her curls.

After settling Reynolds into the morning room with his paints and canvas, Straker joined his fiancee in the parlor with Mr. Daughtry.

"Thank you for waiting, sir," he said as they shook hands.

Mr. Daughtry said as he sat back down, "When I received Lady Oatridge's letter, I determined to come at once to speak with you. However, my business affairs kept me in town until yesterday, when I was finally able to return to Harlington. So I set out this morning in the hopes of catching you both at home. And I see that I have done so. A little wait after all this time is no matter. No matter at all."

Straker gave his fiancee an arch look at this earnest discourse that she had a hard time not responding to, but as she sputtered, he came to her rescue by saying smoothly, "We are naturally transported that you were able to make time for us, sir. Lady Oatridge tells me that you are the head of Harlington's Geological Society."

"Why, yes. I am," Mr. Daughtry replied with a blink, almost as if this was a surprise to him.

Straker's lips quirked, but he managed to refrain from looking at his fiancee again. "Good. I am interested in geology myself," he said. "And therefore have a few questions that perhaps you can answer for me."

Mr. Daughtry practically preened. "I should be happy to, sir. Happy to, indeed!"

"Indeed." Straker's response was so dry that Louise had to hide her face in her handkerchief for a moment.

Thereafter, her fiancee asked the Geological Society's leader such pointed questions about the area's lithosphere and general mineral makeup of the soil that the man became quite flustered. Finally, Mr. Daughtry was driven to say that their little society wasn't quite that serious of an enterprise, and perhaps Devilsgate should form their own society. He felt that Mr. Straker would make a very good leader for such an endeavor, and he should be happy to assist him as needed in their field studies.

By the time he was seen to the door, Straker had a headache. But when he returned to the parlor, he found his fiancee in hysterics.

"Yes, that's all very well, madam," he scolded her. "But he really was no help at all to us."

Louise tried in vain to contain her mirth, but only managed to say, "Oh, Mr. Straker! If he said he would be happy to help one more time, I was certain that you would strangle him!" before succumbing to laughter once more.

He shook his head at her, but it was to be seen that his lips twitched.

Once she was calm, he asked, "What shall we do, my love?"

"It's quite simple, Edward. You shall have to start a Society in Devilsgate."

"That was hardly in our plans," he said dismissively.

"Yes, but see how much better things shall work that way," she coaxed. "Anyone from our village who joins will know why we are searching and how important it is to all of us that we find what we are looking for. You could not ask for more committed helpers in that instance, sir."

"You have a point, my Lady," he said after a moment.

She came to him and took his hand. "Then you will consider it?"

"It seems that I must," he said with a resigned sigh. "If only to keep my future wife from badgering me." But he kissed her hand to show her he was teasing.

They were shown the study, which had been restored to look similar to the way it had in Sir Henry's time. And the dining room, which was set up with chandeliers and candelabras to resemble the fashion of the late eighteenth century. The parlor was decorated quite elaborately, but Jake found the morning room more relaxing.

By the time they thanked their guide and left, Jake felt as though he had somehow managed to enter Straker's world for a time. And even if he hadn't been given the chance to speak to the commander, he felt as though the commander had spoken to him.

They followed the path down the hill to a wooded area where the family cemetery rested. The stones had long ago lost their markings, their words fading into history, but he had a detailed chart from their guide and was able to find Straker's monument. He stood before it in silence for a long time, and he was grateful that Virginia didn't say anything as she stood nearby.

Eventually, they turned and made their way back to where they'd parked the car. As they passed by the garden, he could smell the roses that seemed to flourish everywhere they looked. He stopped, gazing once more at the manor. This had been his commander's home until he died. And he was loath to leave it and return to the work he knew awaited him. He wanted a moment more of this peaceful place first.

"Jake?" Ginny asked, unsure why he had stopped walking.

"We can't try to bring him back, Ginny," he said.

"What? Are you serious? How can you stand here where he lived and died and say you want to leave him here?"

He met her horrified eyes, looking at her as if she was talking in a foreign language. "You don't get it, do you?" he said, sounding a bit bewildered. "Didn't you hear what she told us? Didn't you see that portrait?"

"Of course, I did," she said impatiently. "I was the one who found the print. Remember?"

"Not that portrait. The other one."

"What other one?"

He just stared at her for a moment in silence. Then he said softly, "You really don't see anything except what you want to see, do you?"

She flushed, but shrugged. "I saw it. So what? He got married. He had kids. He died. Is that a fitting end for a great man like him? Just to dwindle and die in some backwater nowhereland?"

He shook his head. "I can't speak to you about this. You're too blinded by your own feelings for him to see the truth. So there's no way for me to explain it."

"Explain what, Jake?"

He sighed, but nonetheless tried to get through to her. "This wasn't some backwater to him. This was home. He found a place where he belonged, Ginny. A place that accepted him, loved him, and revered him. As his family did. She had to have known. Did you realize that? To have agreed to let him name all their children, his wife had to have known where he really was from, and what he'd left behind. She must have been such an incredible woman."

"Why do you keep going on about her?"

"Because he loved her!" he shouted, angry that she refused to see it. "He didn't want to come home, Ginny. He was happy here. _This_ was home. He was finally home. And if you weren't so knotted up by jealousy, you'd see it for yourself!"

She slapped him. She didn't even do it consciously; her hand flew out on its own, connecting with his face sharply. Then with a sob, she ran for the car.

Jake stood where he was a while longer, feeling the sting of his cheek and accepting the message it conveyed. He'd known all along that he'd be fighting a ghost. And how could he possibly contend against a man he admired himself? How could he fault her for loving Straker when he did as well?

He'd tried. Tried to accept that he might never be first with her. To deal with that and let it be. Coming second to Straker was no terrible thing, after all.

But she wouldn't let go. It seemed the longer the commander was gone, the harder she hung onto his memory. If she continued on this way, there would never be a place in her life for anyone else. She'd only see Straker, and no one else would ever be able to reach her.

Jake didn't know how to stop it from happening. He only knew his battered heart couldn't keep taking blow after blow. He loved her, more than he'd ever thought he'd ever love someone. His family hadn't raised him to know much about love, after all. But he loved her anyway.

Maybe he needed to love her enough to let her go. To let her have her ghost, if that's what she wanted. And do what he could to try to cobble the pieces of his heart together again. He owed it to SHADO to give his best. And right now, he didn't have anything to give. He'd have liked to go back into that house and sit in the morning room for a while. Wander the gallery and gaze at Baxter. Straker. Men who had beaten all the odds and found lasting love. Maybe what he needed was a trip through time.

He gave a deep sigh and headed for the car. Trips through time were reserved for those lucky enough to escape the demands of today. And he couldn't. As he got behind the wheel, he could feel her silent anger like a solid wall between them.

Yeah. He just wasn't one of the lucky ones.

**Chapter 4**

Del snuggled against Alec, still out of breath. "Damn, you're good," she murmured, running her fingers through the thick curls on his chest.

He grinned absently, his big hand caressing the back of her head. After a while, he said quietly, "I wanted to apologize."

She lifted her head in surprise. "For what?"

He pushed her back against his chest, so that he didn't have to face her when he said, "For today. I appreciate what you're trying to do for Ed. I really do. And I know you have to be able to do your work, and you couldn't with the office all cluttered up with his things. I know all that. I just – I'm just not ready for everything to change. And it seems sometimes as though nothing's waiting for me to catch up. It just keeps changing."

"Yeah," she murmured. "Life never does quite wait long enough for us to get it back together, does it?"

"No," he sighed. "But thanks for understanding. I think that's part of the problem, really. You understand. So I tend to push it a little harder than otherwise, simply because I know that you do. And I shouldn't. I should be grateful that there's someone in my life who gets where I'm coming from, instead of fighting you every step of the way."

"That's okay," she said, sitting up and straddling him with a wicked grin on her pixie face. "I like to fight with you."

"I've got something to show you," Jake said as they sat eating cinnamon rolls in his office.

"Oh, yeah?" Keith could tell that his friend had a lot on his mind. He had only stayed a few minutes after he'd returned to HQ yesterday evening. Long enough to find out that they still hadn't sighted the UFO. In an unprecedented display of indifference, he'd only nodded and said, "Okay. Keep looking." Then he had gone home. Needless to say, Keith had been worried about him. This morning he seemed back to himself once more. Except that there was a weightiness in his face, in his voice, that hadn't been there before. Keith wondered what he'd seen during the tour to cause such a reaction? Then he decided that – if it was that bad – he really didn't want to know.

Jake got up and went to the desk for a minute, returning with a large photocopy of a chart. When Keith looked closer at it, he could see that it was a family tree. One name stood out among the many hand-written names scrawled across the surface, and he gasped. "You found Commander Straker's family tree?"

"Yeah. And it's even better than the cemetery records. Because it shows that he had another son. Before Jacob or Grace. Right here."

Ford glanced to where Jake was pointing and gasped. "Keith?" he asked in amazement. "He named one of his kids Keith?"

Jake lifted a brow. "Why should that surprise you?"

"Are you kidding?" Ford was flabbergasted. "I wasn't even sure he could stand me! He was always short with me." He touched the name on the chart as if to make certain that it was actually there. "I can't believe it!"

Jake remembered all of a sudden how harshly he'd always treated his communications officer. Kyle had rarely heard anything but sharp orders from his CO, and Jake now realized that over time, he might have thought his commanding officer didn't like him. But the truth was that Jake had relied on him above everyone else. He looked at Keith, standing there about to burst into tears because his commander had cared about him after all. And Jake decided that he'd better think of something nice to do for Kyle. Just so he'd know his CO had appreciated him.

"There's more," he said quietly.

Ford looked at him, seeing something in his eyes that made him sit down suddenly. "What?" he asked, unsure that he wanted to know.

"I checked some records online last night, trying to trace Keith Straker's children in Massachusetts. I found out that several generations of his descendants lived in and around Boston, including eventually an Air Force captain named Andrew Straker, who married Camille Randall in 1938 and had a son two years later. Can you guess what his name was?"

Keith sputtered. "But that's . . . it's not . . . that's a paradox!"

"Yeah." Jake stood staring at the frozen mural behind his desk, thinking about how foolish the aliens had been when they'd tried to stop Straker. In their twisted determination to be rid of him, they'd instead ensured that he would be born. "It's a paradox, alright."

"Come, my love. There's nothing to fear. I will be right here with you the entire time."

"Oh, Edward! I really don't think I can do this!" she said, her wide eyes looking from where he stood with an outstretched hand to the calm dark surface of the pond behind him. "Can't I just wait for you here?"

"Is that what you want? For me to have the adventure without you?"

She swallowed, coming a step closer to the edge of the pond. The sun was hot in the sky overhead, but she did not feel it. Instead, she shivered in her chemise, terrified to her bones. "Edward, I know there isn't a dragon in there," she said, trying to be as reasonable as her fiancee about this. "But somehow my bones say there is one."

"That's because you're looking at the water, instead of at me," he said and came over to her, taking her into his arms. Since he had also stripped down to his undergarments, their embrace was nearly the same as being naked. He kissed her until her eyes were full of him, forgetting their surroundings completely.

"Now, come," he coaxed her, taking her hands and walking backward toward the water slowly, his eyes on hers. "No, don't look down. Just keep looking at me. We shall go to the beach often, my love."

"The beach?"

"Yes," he said, entering the water. He carefully tightened his grip on her hands, drawing her toward him. "We shall take the children there for a vacation. Several times a year. They'll love it. But how sad it would be if their mother could not join them in the waves! Don't you think?"

"I . . ." She faltered as her toes hit the water, but resolutely kept her eyes on his as she swallowed and said, "You are right. It would be terrible if I could not be in the water with them. Could we not wait and try this at the ocean?"

He grinned, appreciating her attempts to keep it light. "Actually, my love, this water is still while the ocean is choppy. It's much better for you to learn to swim in the pond. See how brave you are?" This he said as she advanced into the water with him up to her ankles. She was trembling and white to the lips, but he knew her strength and did not hesitate.

"We shall take a picnic with us whenever we go," he said, slowly edging backward. "At the beach, the water stays shallow for quite a while, allowing you to feel as though you're in the midst of the ocean when you look around. This pond, however, is much smaller, and therefore has a steeper drop-off."

He was suddenly waist deep in the water, and her eyes widened even more. "Edward," she breathed, feeling the drop-off under her toes.

"It's alright, darling. Come with me. It's just water."

"Just water," she repeated past the lump in her throat.

He grinned at her. "That's right," he encouraged. "We shall have a houseful of children to take to the beach every year. How many do you think that might be?"

She gulped as the water surged up around her, and clung to his hands for balance. "Tw-twelve!" she said, holding his gaze as tightly as she held his hands.

He laughed. "Twelve is not a houseful," he said. "I say at least twenty. Twenty is a very good number and would constitute the perfect family. Don't you agree?"

"Oh!" she said as her feet went out from under her. "Edward!"

"It's alright," he murmured, holding her close. "I've got you."

"How can we remain above water?" she asked. "We shall surely drown."

"No, my love. We won't drown. We'll float."

She gulped, trying to relax in his arms. He made it sound so easy. Surely it must be easy? "Float," she said.

"That's right." He eased slowly away from her, still holding her hands, and pulled her through the water. "How does that feel?"

Her eyes widened, but this time not with fear. "Oh, Edward!"

Straker grinned, knowing that the battle was over. "Yes, it feels wonderful, doesn't it?"

"It's as though I have no body!" she exclaimed.

"Weightless," he agreed.

"Weightless," she repeated, her body relaxing completely as he pulled her around the pond. "Oh, there is nothing like it!"

"Actually, my love, there is," he said. "The weightlessness of outer space feels very much like this."

"Outer space?" she asked, bewildered by the term. "Outer – _space?_ Oh, you are teasing me! You have not gone swimming among the stars!"

His grin grew. What a lovely way to describe it – swimming among the stars! "I adore you," he said. "And yes, I have done so. The Earth looks like a large white and blue ball from out there. It's a view you never forget."

Louise gazed at him in amazement, trying to glimpse what he was relating to her. "White and blue? I should think it would look green instead."

"You would think so, looking around England. But most of the world is water, so . . ."

"The blue!" she realized.

"Yes. And not all of the land is as green as England, but is brown or even tan. But somehow from space, they all blur into the blue."

"Then where does the white come from?" she asked, getting bolder now as she floated with him.

"The clouds," he said, then smiled as she looked up at the small clouds in the sky. He could tell that she was trying to picture it in her mind, and it was like finding the wonder of it all over again to share it with her.

"I still remember my first moonwalk," he murmured almost to himself.

She gasped. "Moon? Oh, no! Now I know you are teasing me! Edward, you have not walked the moon! It's not possible!"

He grinned at her. "It's almost as much fun as freefalling in space. But you have a little more weight on the moon."

She shook her head at him, unwilling to believe such a tale. "How would you get there? In one of your heir-plains, I suppose?"

"Well, yes. Except that it takes a ship that's a bit more powerful than an airplane to reach the moon," he said.

She met his blue eyes and tried not to be overwhelmed. The things he spoke of so calmly were far beyond her wildest imaginings. Yet she could tell by the underlying seriousness of his tone that they were true.

"A ship," she said suddenly, glancing fearfully into the water. "There is a ship under us right now."

"Yes," he said, drawing her closer. "But it has no one to drive it, so it can't hurt us."

She relaxed a little in his arms. "I cannot see it."

"No. This pond is very deep. But it is there. Someday soon I shall show it to you."

She met his eyes in surprise. "How?"

"When you've learned to swim underwater," he said.

She blinked at him. She had thought that this was all there was to swimming. "There's more?" she asked eagerly.

Straker laughed. "Oh, my love! There's always more."

**Chapter 5**

"It's been three days since we lost radar contact," Commander Davenport said. "I'm taking HQ off of yellow alert. If they'd wanted to attack, they would have done so by now."

"It doesn't make sense," Foster complained. "Why hide if they didn't mean to attack?"

"Maybe there's something else they wanted to do more," Alec said.

"Like what?"

The colonel gave his commander a swift glance before saying, "I don't know, Paul. Their minds are too twisted for me. But you can bet that whatever they've got up their sleeve, it's not going to be good for Earth."

"Well, isn't there any way of tracking them?" Paul asked, frustrated beyond belief. "Isn't it worth our while to find out what they're up to?"

"If we could do it, Paul, we would," Virginia said quietly from her chair. "Face it. They're more advanced than we are. So we're always going to have an occasional UFO get away from us. If you can find a way to stop that from happening, go for it. But even Commander Straker accepted that we couldn't get them all."

Foster surged to his feet. "But Straker wouldn't have just given up, Ginny! He'd keep at it until he'd figured out what their scheme was." He glared at Davenport. "And he wouldn't cancel a yellow alert before we were sure it was safe!"

Jake stood as well and said firmly, "But Straker's not in command anymore, is he, Colonel? I am."

Paul's fists clenched at his sides, but he kept himself from lunging at his commanding officer. Barely. "Yes. Sir," he said through gritted teeth.

Jake leaned forward and depressed the button on his desk to open the door. "You're dismissed, Colonel."

Paul left the office in total silence. But it was not a comforting silence.

Ginny stood, taking in the commander's tense features. "I'll notify HQ to stand down from yellow alert, sir," she said calmly.

"Thank you, Colonel."

Only after she had left and he'd closed the door, did Jake sit down again. And put his head in his hands.

"It sucks being the commander," Alec said softly.

Jake sat back and met his eyes, a hint of moisture in his own. "Damn straight," he agreed

"Why don't you just get a new command team? Start fresh with people who won't expect you to do things Ed's way?"

"Because . . ."

Alec looked around the office, where the only change since Jake had taken over was that the mural didn't move. "Yeah," he said heavily. "I guess I know why. Listen, Jake. Have you even given yourself a chance to grieve?"

Jake closed his eyes and shook his head. "I'll be fine, Alec," he said.

"Yeah," the colonel agreed. "But at what cost?"

"I'm okay," Davenport assured him. "I'm dealing. Really. In fact, I talked to him just the other day."

"Oh, yeah?" Alec was politely incredulous.

Jake chuckled weakly. "Not like that! Dammit, Alec! I haven't flipped my lid!"

"If you say so," the colonel said. "But you're not sitting where I'm sitting, hearing what I'm hearing."

Jake grinned. "Cut it out! It was when we toured that manor, the one where he lived the rest of his life. It wasn't like a conversation or anything. But I felt the connection." He was silent a moment, remembering. "Did you know he lived to be seventy-nine?"

Alec looked startled. "Seventy-nine? Really? How about that! He was always sure he'd be dead before he hit fifty."

"He had nine kids," Jake told him, relaxing for the first time in days.

"_Nine?_" Alec gasped. "Well, hell! He was certainly making up for lost time."

Lost time, Jake thought. Yeah, he guessed Straker had been. "He named his oldest child after you."

The colonel met his eyes in shock, then grinned ruefully, his eyes filling up. "I'll be damned! He would. He always was a sentimental fool."

"I'm in there too," Jake said, glad to have someone to talk to about it who understood how honored he felt. "Way down after Ginny, Paul, Peter, Keith, and the rest of them. Except for Grace. She was after me."

"Who are the rest? You only named seven."

"Oh. Gay and Nina."

Alec nodded. "That sounds like Ed. He always cared a lot more than he ever let on. Had a Grace, did he? Someone should tell her. She'd get a kick out of it."

Jake snorted. "Yeah. And have her start wondering why we weren't bringing him back if we knew where he was."

Freeman asked quietly, "You're not going to bring him back, are you, Jake?"

The commander shook his head. "I can't. But I'd decided even before then, if you want to know the truth. The tour guide told us a story about him, one that they still talk about in these parts. About the time he came into town with a bunch of grandkids hanging off of him. I guess it was a sight to see. He'd have been nearly seventy when it happened."

He looked at Straker's closest friend and said, "I can't take that memory away from him, Alec. That one, and all the ones before that led up to it. He was happy. For maybe the only time in his life, he was happy. Would you have me take that away from him?"

"No." Alec thought for a moment. "What reason will you give Henderson?"

"The official one, of course. One of Straker's sons emigrated to Boston and had a large family."

"Jesus!" Alec said, nearly coming out of his chair. "You're not saying . . . ?"

"Yeah, I am," Jake said with a grin. "He was his own great-great-great-something grandfather."

"Sounds just like him!" Alec decided once he got his mouth closed. "He was forever going on about those time thingies, until it made my head hurt. Serves him right to be caught in the middle of one himself!"

"Paradoxes. They're called paradoxes."

"Whatever." He looked at his commander, whose countenance had lightened considerably while they'd been talking. And he remembered suddenly how much better he'd felt about things after Jake had gotten him to talk about Ed that time. He stood up and stretched, saying, "Where did you say they still told tales about Ed?"

"The tour guide said Devilsgate, but it's not in existence anymore. I checked."

"Yeah, because it was swallowed up when Harlington expanded. But I'll bet there are a few pubs in that area of town old enough to remember a tale or two. Want to join me?"

Jake grinned. "Hell, yeah!"

"Was SHADO written using all capital letters?"

Straker looked up from where he'd been ordering the bookshelves after the maids had finished dusting everything in the library. "Hmmm?"

Louise sighed. Her fiancee tended to get lost in a task, focusing on it to the exclusion of everything else. "Edward! I asked if SHADO was written using all capital letters?"

He frowned at her. How would she know that? "Yes. Why do you ask?"

"Because I have found reference to it in my great grandfather's journal. Several times, actually."

"What?" He'd known that she had been reading a leatherbound book from the section on local histories, but he'd had no idea it had been written by a relative. "How on Earth could your great grandfather know about SHADO?"

"I don't know," she answered. "But he was odd. My grandfather told me such stories about him! Blowing up the house and staring at his timepiece for hours. His journals are equally strange, filled with words I've never seen before. Like seismometer and telemetry."

"Let me see that," he said, coming forward.

She handed him the journal, and he leafed through a few of the pages. In a close handwriting that was nearly illegible, he read the words she had not understood, surrounded by diagrams of various odd machines. And there were indeed references to SHADO. Spelled just as it should be – if you were referring to the top secret organization.

"Who was your great grandfather, Louise?" he asked her quietly.

"Sir Neils Baxter. Why? Was he . . . ? Did he . . . ?"

"Baxter!" Straker strode about the disordered room, still holding the journal while he marched between the stacks of books ready to be reshelved. "SHADO had a technician named Baxter – a brilliant man, which is why I remember him. He worked in one of our facilities in the States. Damn! I can't remember his first name!"

"But Edward! How is it possible that he . . . ?"

"I don't know. Perhaps he can tell us. May I read this?" He held up the journal.

When she hesitated, he said softly, "Louise?"

"Yes, of course you may!" she said, abruptly getting up from her chair. "Mrs. Meddows wanted final approval on the dishes to be served at our wedding reception. It should only take . . ."

He took her arm as she tried to sweep past him. "Louise," he said quietly. "Talk to me. Tell me what is wrong. Please."

She swallowed the tears that threatened. "Remember when we spoke before . . . about how we were both terrified that something would occur to keep us from marrying?"

"Yes," he said with a frown, trying to make sense of her worry. "What does that have to do with this journal?"

She met his eyes fleetingly. "Because perhaps you understand his odd words and his odd pictures. Perhaps they will tell you how to return to your home once more. And perhaps you will leave before we are wed."

"No!" he said, aghast that she would even think such a thing. "Louise! Darling!" He kissed her all over her face. "I'm not leaving you! I thought you understood. When I told you I couldn't leave you, I meant ever. Not just in terms of a short while or a few years. _Ever_, Louise!"

"Ever?" she asked, smiling through her tears.

"Ever," he assured her, lightly brushing his hands down her cheeks to dry them.

"Oh, Edward!" she cried, throwing herself into his arms. "I did not dare to hope . . . !"

"My sweet woman," he scolded her lovingly, holding her close and kissing her curls. "You should always dare to hope."

"Looks kind of bare," he said as she invited him in.

She turned to him with a sassy grin. "Give me time, Alec. Give me time. I'm not used to this much space. I'll fill it up eventually. Though hopefully not as full as it was before."

He accepted the drink she offered him and sat next to her on the bright red couch. "He was never here, you know. Except to sleep occasionally."

"So you didn't visit him here often?"

He shrugged. "Once or twice just after the divorce – to play chess. In later years, no. I think after a while, he got tired of even pretending it was a home."

"I guess I'm glad he didn't spend a lot of time here," Del said after a while. "Or I'd feel haunted here like I do in the office."

Alec frowned. "But his stuff has been moved to the display. The office doesn't even look the same."

"Yeah," she said with a sigh. "But I still feel his presence there."

"It makes you sad."

"Not always. Sometimes it's rather nice to have him around. Like an old quilt that sits just right around your shoulders."

He shared her grin, then said quietly, "Were you two ever . . . ?"

Del laughed. "Why, thank you, Alec! That's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me. No. Of course, we weren't. We didn't think of each other that way. I mean, okay. There were times I thought about it, because I'm a woman, and he was a very sexy man. But he didn't care about me like that. He loved my brain, not my body."

"More fool him."

She gave him a sly smile. "Stop it! You'll make me blush!"

He chuckled. "You sound like you knew him well."

"I did. We did. He came by every once in a while when he was in the States to talk to Kiki. And to bug me about SHADO. He really wanted my brain in SHADO. Funny how things work out, isn't it? He finally got his wish. Not quite the way he had it planned, but still."

"If he'd asked, would you have?"

She met his dark eyes for a moment. "Had sex with him? Probably. Maybe. I don't know."

"Which is it?" he asked, grinning at her confusion.

She grinned back. "Probably not. He wasn't really my type, you know. Sexy as hell, but he wasn't complicated enough for me."

Alec's brow lifted. "That's one I haven't heard before. Most people considered him complicated enough for five men."

She chuckled. "Yeah, but they didn't really know him, did they? Once you knew him, he wasn't difficult to understand at all. Easy peasy, in fact."

"How so?" he asked, greatly intrigued by her view of the man he'd never completely comprehended even after nearly twenty years of friendship.

"Well, Ed was pretty basic, you know? A gentleman, in spite of everything. His dad wanted him to be a hard-nosed military drone, and his mom wanted him to be a poet. He tried to please them both; but in the end, he was just himself. Polite. Reserved. Chivalrous. He really was meant for a different time than the present."

She turned to him with a grin. "I'm so glad he found a place that suited him."

His big hand came up to caress the back of her neck. "Jake says he married a redhead."

Her brow quirked. "And?"

He shook his head ruefully. "It's hard to imagine him with a redhead. Do you know how many redheads I tried to get him interested in back in the Air Force?"

"Well, you should be proud that he finally took your advice."

He chuckled. "I suppose. At least she kept him busy. Nine kids. He'd have liked that."

She leaned her head on his shoulder, sliding her arms around him. "Yeah, he would. Both in the making and the enjoying, I expect."

"I expect," he agreed absently, distracted by her hands under his shirt.

A long while later, he stirred and asked, somewhat hesitantly, "So. Would you say I was complicated?"

She grinned as she lay against his chest, but she kept her voice meditative as she answered. "Oh, I suppose so. Fairly complicated."

_Complicated enough for you?_ he wanted to ask, but didn't.

"I see you clearly enough," she said after a moment.

"You do?"

He sounded worried. She met his eyes. Yep. He was worried alright. "Is that a bad thing?" she asked softly.

He frowned. "I'm not a very nice person," he admitted gruffly.

She grinned. "I know. It's one of the things I like most about you."

"What the hell is this?" She stormed into his office, tossing the papers on his desk.

Jake picked up the sheets and glanced at them before setting them down in front of him. "I would have thought it was obvious what they were, Virginia."

"Moonbase? You're sending me to Moonbase? Why?"

"I believe the transfer papers detail pretty clearly what I need you to do there," he said.

"The truth, damn it!" she said fiercely, leaning over the desk into his face. "Why are you sending me there?"

He sat back with a sigh. The problem, he had always known, with dealing with a strong-minded woman was that she wasn't easily maneuvered. "I can't have you here, Virginia," he said quietly.

She blinked, unsettled by his honesty. "Why not?" she asked.

He met her eyes for a moment. "I love you."

Ginny sank into the nearest chair. "But you . . . but I . . ."

"I know," he said. "You don't have to say it. I'm quite aware how you see me. And maybe we could have gone along for a while before you tired of me, but it didn't happen that way, did it?"

"Is this because I slapped you? Because if so, I'll apologize."

His smile held very little warmth. "It's not necessary. It made an effective period to our relationship."

"Jake," she said, beginning to worry.

"It's really quite simple," he said. "I have to be able to function. As the commander of SHADO. And as a man. I can't do either of those things with you fuzzing up my mind. I wish I could say that it wouldn't bother me to work near you every day wanting more. But I'm not Straker. Am I?"

"Jake . . ."

"And I can't just sit here, waiting for you to find solace elsewhere. That . . . would be too much. So, it's better for both of us if you just work somewhere else for a while. Until I can stand to be in the same room with you."

She leaned forward, taking his hand. "Jake, please!"

Abruptly, he stood up and turned away. "Now you know," he said quietly. "I've explained everything to you. Go away, Ginny."

She sat there trembling, wondering what was wrong with her. He'd told her to go. She should go. But somehow she couldn't make herself get up from the chair and leave. "Jake," she said almost in a whisper. "Won't you let me explain?"

"What, Ginny?" he asked, whirling around angrily to face her. "What is there to explain? I already understand. I promise you. I'm not Straker! I'm not even close! I'm just the sorry guy who got stuck with his job! I'll never measure up to what you want. Never! I know that. You know that. Let's cut the crap and go on, shall we? I'm tired of . . ." He put a shaky hand to his face and turned away again. "I'm tired of not being good enough for you."

"I never said that!" she said, surging to her feet.

He sighed. "You didn't have to. It was obvious."

"Jake . . . I don't want to leave," she said. She knew it wasn't what she'd wanted to say, but somehow she couldn't get the right words out.

"Then I'll go!" he said, unable to stand any more. He headed for the door, only to have her block his path. "Out of my way!" he demanded raggedly.

She reached out and took his arms, feeling their trembling under her fingers. "Jake, don't!" she said.

He grabbed her close, burying his face in her hair. "Ginny! God, Ginny! What am I supposed to do?"

"Don't make me go, Jake!" she begged him, words she didn't know were inside her tumbling out as if they'd been dammed up too long. "I love you. I don't know why! You can't even wear decent shoes! But you treat me like an equal and make me feel like a woman all at the same time. And when you touch me, I feel things in parts of me I didn't even know existed! You're right. I didn't want you. I didn't think you were good enough. You weren't Commander Straker. But Commander Straker isn't here, is he? He left and didn't come back. He's the one who wasn't good enough, Jake. Not you. Because you're still here. You're still fighting for Earth. And I want to fight with you, by your side. Don't make me go away. Let me be with you. Please?"

He was kissing her feverishly, all the while shaking his head. "For how long, Ginny? How long till you tire of me?"

"Forever!" she said fiercely, exulting in his kisses. "Marry me, Jake! Let me cuddle with you every night and eat doughnuts with you every morning." She was kissing him back wildly, hardly aware of her words, but simply pouring out her heart. "Let me prove I'm good enough for you!"

"Ginny! Ginny!" he murmured, overwhelmed.

The office door opened, then closed again as Keith hurriedly stepped back. He blinked a few times at the closed panel before sighing and looking at the papers in his hand. Somehow he didn't think the commander wanted to go over the duty roster for next week just now. He glanced back at the closed door as he walked away. _And maybe not for quite a while_.


End file.
